Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Dom Museum in Wurzburg

Visited the Dom (Cathedral) Museum in Wurzburg, Germany, recently. It is a collection of modern Christian art with a sprinkling of old Christian art.

If a non-Christian was to walk through this collection he or she could be forgiven for coming away with the idea that Christianity is about death and death and death.

Not all the old art in the museum focuses on death, but the vast majority of the modern art does.

Well, I thought, that's okay because I'm sure that just around the corner is art about the joy of the resurrection since the resurrection follows Jesus' death. But no, just more death. And for variety, perhaps not wanting to overdo depictions of Jesus' death, there were pictures of other people's deaths as well.

No pictures of Jesus healing people, or of his teaching, or of other events of his life, or of his parables, or of his victory over death. There was (if I understood it correctly) a modern picture of the annunciation and a couple of the adoration of the magi (one in which each person had a shopping bag over his head), but mostly just death.

So, how is church attendance in Germany these days? Bursting at the seams, is it? No? Maybe institutions such as the Dom Museum presenting such a distorted and ugly view of Christianity is a contributing factor.

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